


Dreaming Her

by Ramzes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Multi, a grim piece, character exploration, noot quite sure about this second chapter after all, oc straight from Silver Tears of the Moon, ocs and echoes from older fics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 13:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15582939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: She never said, “Dream of me,” the way many others had said trying to look playful and infatuated - and a good thing it was, for Daeron Targaryen's dreams were not a place that anyone would WANT to be in.





	Dreaming Her

Everyone knew that dragon dreams were the bane of Daeron Targaryen’s existence.

Everyone knew of death, destruction, flames, fire and blood that invaded his mind the moment he closed his eyes… and too often, even when he did not. Death of people, destruction of the world, flames engulfing every reason, all small threads of mercy, fire and blood dancing with his family’s madness and their searing longing to regain what had been lost… well, perhaps not this last part. He was quite sure that he had managed to keep this a secret. He _was_ a Targaryen, after all. There was only so much bad reputation that his family could take. But he was equally sure that he had mentioned the dragons, the other part of fire and blood. Not that anyone, save for his kin, had paid attention. Everyone was safe in the belief that dragons would not come back and his words had been surely taken as another proof of his instability. Daeron did not mind. By the Seven, no one knew just how much _he_ longed to believe it, too!

Sometimes, people asked about details and he could only laugh with revulsion and disbelief. Did anyone think that the whole was pretty? Was not a single look at him evidence to the contrary?

What no one knew was the fact that save for his dragon dreams, he had some others, as well. Vastly different. Not imagery but images. Images of kin and friends, everyone he loved. With nothing good about them – the good parts simply avoided him, he was sure. Instead, he got vivid scenes of their last days well before it happened. He saw his grandfather on his deathbed as all around, the Great Spring Sickness danced wildly, and each time he did, he refilled his goblet of Arbor white. He saw Aemon dying old and broken, in a despondent ship amidst an endless sea in a devastated land that only carried the tiny hope his brother cradled to his increasingly faintly moving chest. This one was worth an entire bottle of Dornish red. His father, needing a bloody _rock_ to finally fell him – well, whatever there was on the table was fine, as long as the amount was copious. Summerhall, the place he loved best in the entire world, burning down and Egg, Egg being the one doing this… Lucky Egg, dying before he could spend the rest of his lifetime beating himself over it. This was worth a tavern’s entire ale supply and Daeron did his best to drink as much of it as possible. A few weeks before anyone else knew about the return of his mother’s terrible ailment, he had already seen her shrunken form being lifted on a pyre which his father lit. Her rich black hair was no longer, which, strangely, looked to Daeron as almost as bad as the dead state of the body itself. The first time the dream came, they had barely managed to awake him after all the wine that he had taken.

He never saw the good things, the ones that went down as they should be, and he cursed his dreams for this. Just the bad, the savage, the terrible – that was what his dreams were made of.

He never dreamed of her – and this was a good thing.

Aurelia Dayne. His cousin. The same age as him and already the most beautiful lady in the Seven Kingdoms when he saw her again after years of estrangement between Starfall and Summerhall. And the only one who did not pretend that she did not mind his drinking – she made no secret of the fact that she hated it as much as his father did, if not more, but with her, this did not reek of fierce determination to push it out of him even if she had to break him in the process.

“Don’t,” she said one day as they strolled down a garden path, followed by a crowd of courtiers who did not know what to think – the pair were cousins, after all. “Not when you’re with me, at least.”

He wanted to spend the day with her and have her smile, so he indulged her, as hard as it was.  And over time, it stopped being this hard. There was something about her that kept the waking dreams away… and Daeron had the feeling that it might have also helped with the night ones. But he would never know – the heiress of Starfall had been long betrothed and waiting for a child groom to grow up, a very important match designed to make amends and she would not endanger it in any way. Not that Daeron would ask it of her. Something about her determination, her soft but iron readiness to do all she could to right the wrong another had committed disarmed him. Admiration? Certainly. No one would call _him_ determined… but for some reason, Aurelia wanted him just the way he was, with his drinking if she could not have him otherwise. Of course, she would never do anything to _take_ him but he did not doubt that if she had been free to make a choice, it would have been him.

She never said, “Dream of me,” the way many others had said trying to look playful and infatuated. A few words had made it clear that she understood what ailed him but they rarely mentioned it – they were just too busy living the moments that the Seven had gifted them. And when her twin brother, Arthur, joined them, Daeron almost had the feeling that the world had changed. Aurelia’s soft glow, accompanied by liveliness that made him feel alive as well and the dreams that haunted Arthur as well – not the dragon dreams. The others. He did not feel so out of place now. There was someone else like him. The feeling of kinship that had nothing to do with the fact that they were actually kin had nothing to do with it. And the sunlight and the red, purple, and white flowers and the sea beyond were theirs, for today, at least. They could share the beauty – and the ugliness. Without the details.

For a while.

Later, he made it a point to respect Aurelia’s wishes and stay away from her. For years. He stood away as the enmity between his father, his uncle, and the Hand of the King reached its peak, abated, got washed away. He was not present at Aurelia’s wedding and he listened to the accounts about the bragging the boy had done for wedding such a beautiful woman without even reaching for his cup.

The night before he saw her again… he did not dream of her.

When he saw her, lovelier than ever, the sun dancing in her pale-gold, almost silver hair and turning her robes into a river of melting colours, her smile brilliant and her eyes bright… he did. And almost screamed, for the black shadow trailing her was the same as the one that had wrapped, over time, closer and closer around his mother.


End file.
